Air pollution

The Environment and Health ministries on Tuesday issued a joint statement asking households to limit their use of fireplaces, particularly in urban areas, today as weather conditions are likely to aggravate atmospheric pollution.

Bulgaria has no official data on the correlation between air pollution and health, said the director of the Executive Environment Agency Vanya Grigorova, quoted by Dnevnik.bg.

The Maritsa Iztok-2 Thermal Power Plant (TPP) is topping by far a European list of the continent's most pollutive industrial facilities, a report published Tuesday shows.

This is one position up compared to 2009, when Bulgaria's biggest TPP was second.

The ranking is about the size of pollution costs the heavy industry carries to citizens.

Bulgaria remains the leader in the European Union in terms of air pollution, according to the World Health Organization.

The highest concentration of the two main types of particulates has been measured in Bulgaria, the WHO latest data has showed. Poland and Romania rank second and third in the negative rating.

The cleanest air in Bulgaria is at Rozhen peak in the Rhodope mountains, while  the cities Plovdiv and Varna have the most polluted air.

The main cause of air pollution in Bulgaria are the fine dust particles, said the head of the Air Monitoring Department in the State Environment Agency, Valeri Serafimov.

One in eight of total global deaths is the result of air pollution exposure, according to the new World Health Organization report, released Tuesday.

This finding more than doubles previous estimates and confirms that air pollution is now the world's largest single environmental health risk. Reducing air pollution could save millions of lives.